After scoring four goals in a single game earlier this week, Mathieu Perreault might just have had his season ended by Daniel Carcillo on Friday. In the waning seconds of the second period, Perreault slashed Duncan Keith’s stick out of his hands. Carcillo responded by cross-checking Perry from behind in the middle of the arm. Perreault’s arm appears to have been injured significantly.

Warning: This video is graphic and will make you feel very sad.

Video

Perreault was helped off the ice in apparently excruciating pain. He was favoring his left arm. Carcillo was assessed a two-minute minor for cross-checking, but you have to think that the NHL will suspend him later this weekend.

This pisses me off so much, especially with how well Perry was playing lately.

Poor, Matty P. Get well soon, bud. All of us here in Washington will be thinking about you.

“Four goals, it’s something very special,” Perreault said to NHL.com after the game. “The bounces were going my way. It was one of those crazy nights. It was a fun night. The power play has been playing great. My linemates have been awesome.”

Jets head coach Paul Maurice added that he was proud to see Perreault rewarded after an unlucky start to the season where he didn’t put points on the board.

“I’m happy for [Perreault] because he has done it the right way,” Maurice said. “He works so hard. He went through that stretch where he wasn’t scoring, and his practices got even more competitive, and he worked even harder. Good for him. It’s a good sell for the coaches, because if you work that hard, good things are going to happen.”

There’s really no need to read this piece. Your life will be no better for having read what’s below. Your life might actually get worse. You should probably stop right now.

(Last chance.)

So the Caps have freed some players over the last few years, and it feels like all of them have turned into beautiful hockey butterflies. The team had good reasons to trade or release some guys; others… not so much. In this still very young season, those hockey butterflies are playing so good it’s like they’re trying to make you jealous. Well, it’s not going to work, hockey butterflies.

Okay, yeah, it is.

I’m gonna take a peek around the league, in a totally non-Facebook-stalker-y way, just to see how certain ex-Caps forwards are doing in their new homes. Pretty freaking well, it turns out. Starting with prospect-bust-turned-Calder-standout Filip Forsberg, lemme run down who has moved on and how they’re doing.

Below is a Vollman player usage chart, packaged by War On Ice. It shows how players perform in possession by shading their circles (red is bad, blue is good) in comparison to how they’re deployed based on zone starts and competition. Players at the top left, for example, see the toughest competition and the most defensive zone starts and are more likely to have negative possession.

A quick rundown of the stats I’m using here:

G: goals scored during all game situations.

A: assists during all game situations.

TOI/G: Average time on ice, all game situations.

Goal%: Percentage of total goals that belong to the player’s team during 5v5. Above 50 is good.

SA%: Percentage of shot attempts that belong to the player’s team during 5v5. Also known as Fenwick For. Above 50 is good.

PDO: The sum of on-ice shooting and on-ice saving percentages while the player is on the ice during 5v5. Above 100 means the player is getting favorable outcomes.

Zone Starts: Percentage of total shifts that the player started in the offensive zone during 5v5, not counting neutral-zone shifts.

Competition: The average percentage of 5v5 ice time of opponents faced by the player. The higher the number, the tougher the competition.

Filip Forsberg, Nashville Predators

Eighteen months after the Caps traded him away, Forsberg has become Nashville’s emerging star. With James Neal and Mike Ribeiro at his side, Forsberg has outscored opponents a staggering 19 to 2 during 5v5. While he’s getting pretty nice zone starts (58.7 percent of them in the offensive zone), Forsberg is also facing the opponent’s top competition (judging by them getting 29.22 percent of the opponent’s ice time).

Matt Hendricks, Edmonton Oilers

G

A

TOI/G

Goal%

SA%

PDO

Zone Starts

Competition

Salary

2

2

13:04

23.08

46.13

91.80

11.92

27.25

$1.85M

Oh, this is different.

Grinding for the Oilers, Matt “The Wheel” Hendricks is getting buried in the defensive zone, where he’s started 133 of his 197 shifts that began with a faceoff. That is an extreme deployment– bottom five in the league, next to his linemate and also former Cap Boyd Gordon.

Before you feel too bad for Hendricks, let’s acknowledge that this is his job. Dallas Eakins is using his Caps castoffs to absorb the garbage shifts, freeing up the Oilers’ precious little offensive talent to do damage in the O-zone.

Goalies behind Marty are saving just 85.06 percent of shots, which you’d think would be the lowest number in this list, but hold on.

Erat is a solid, somewhat overpaid, and thoroughly un-stunning player. That’s not a bad way to be, but poor Marty doesn’t have much recourse when PDO paints him as a bum. At least his individual achievements, 4 goals and 3 assists, have been badly needed in Glendale.

He’s in the middle of the lineup, so he’s not facing the toughest competition, but Perreault is sporting the best relative possession on the team (they own 8.33 percent more shot attempts when Matty isn’t on the bench).

The points aren’t really there for Perreault yet, but they will come as soon as his team improves its miserably 2.75 shooting percentage when he’s on the ice.

There aren’t many players as criminally underrated as Mathieu Perreault (I’m at fault for underrating him as well). He’s a superb, tiny depth forward who is finally getting the salary he deserves in the ‘Peg, though the Caps sure could have used his strength down the middle last season.

Alex Semin, Carolina Hurricanes

G

A

TOI/G

Goal%

SA%

PDO

Zone Starts

Competition

Salary

0

5

17:03

40.00

55.95

92.62

66.36

29.26

$7.00M

Oh, sweet baby.

Something is wrong with Sasha. He used to average about 15 shot attempts per 60 minutes of 5v5, putting him in the 93rd percentile in individual shot output. That number has dropped 6.89 this season, which would be about the 18th percentile.

Semin is getting just 83.1 percent goaltending, the worst in this list, but that’s probably not comforting for Semin or his boosters. If the writing on the wall and the word on the street are to believed, Semin may not be long for Carolina.

There would be a lot of teams eager to snatch him up. For some reason, I don’t think Washington would be among them.

Mikhail Grabovski, New York Islanders

G

A

TOI/G

Goal%

SA%

PDO

Zone Starts

Competition

Salary

3

4

13:43

72.73

59

106

47.25

28.86

$5.00M

Grabo joined his buddy Nikolai Kulemin on Long Island this summer, breaking the heart of at least one Capitals writer. Since they arrived in Brooklyn, Grabovski hasn’t skated next to Kulemin as much as some expected, spending just one fifth of his 5v5 time with Kulemin.

But Grabo has done exactly what we’d expect him to do— keep the puck in the offensive zone and out of his net. He’s getting really good percentages in shooting and saving, but don’t let that undermine the way Grabo is driving play. He hardly ever shares the ice with John Tavares, but Grabovski has given New York a secondary threat. That’s a not-insignificant factor in how the Isles have become arguably the league’s most improved team this season. They currently own second place in the Metro, and I have a feeling they’ll be a primary competitor for the Caps through the end of the regular season and maybe even beyond. Darn it.

This season, the Capitals are celebrating their 40th anniversary. Since they weren’t able to raise any Eastern Conference Regular Season Champion banners last year, the team decided to add a new installation outside section 111 honoring the hat tricks in franchise history. The exhibition, in a neat touch, includes displays of headwear collected after 13 hat tricks at Verizon Center since 2008. Most of those, naturally, come from Alex Ovechkin, with cameos from Nicklas Backstrom and Troy Brouwer and departed Caps Alexander Semin and Mathieu Perreault. There’s currently space for three more hat tricks. How quickly those get filled will depend on whether teams keep leaving Ovi wide open at the near circle.

Late in the third period, with the Capitals protecting a 3-2 lead, bedfellows got even stranger when Alex Ovechkin and Perreault collided near the Caps crease. Perreault took an extra whack at a loose puck, which Ovechkin did not seem to like very much.

The Russian machine cleared the crease the only way he knows how, shoving Perreault twice and knocking him over. With Matty belly up along the boards, Ovechkin loomed over his former bro as if to say, “You know not to do dis.”

The Caps’ Californian vacation is a crucible that will decide exactly of what this team is made. If the Caps can do the impossible and sweep these four games (the fourth at home against the Kings), they could once again make a late-season push for the postseason. With Tuesday’s narrow win over Bruce Boudreau and his Anaheim Ducks, those hopes are still alive.

Here’s how it all went down.

Joel Ward and the terrific third line did their thing again, crashing the net for the game’s first goal. The Ducks struck back as any Caps opponent would do: within the next minute. Before the first period was up, Troy Brouwer converted on the power play to give the Caps a one-goal lead.

The Caps survived a scoreless second period, but Mathieu Perreault found space and a screen to tie the game early in the third. That simply set the stage for Alex Ovechkin, who scored one of his cleanest Ovi shots from the Ovi spot. Halak fought off a late scramble by the Ducks.

Caps beat Ducks 3-2!

Mathieu Perreault should never have been traded. He’s a good depth player on a great contract, and he’s adorable like a woodland creature. Looking at the Caps lineup on Tuesday, there’s a woodland creature-shaped hole in the middle of the roster. Sarcastically/naturally, Perreault struck in the third period– thanks to a casual vacancy in his slot and no Caps D particularly interested in shoving Ducks out of the crease. One of Anaheim’s best players all night.

The Caps were forced (by themselves, so not actually forced at all) to kill a lengthy five-on-three early in the second period. Within a span of ten seconds, the Caps got busted on a sloppy change (too much dudes) and chucking the puck (delay of game). The PK unit got a bit of luck and some good coverage by Jaroslav Halak to kill it off. Those aren’t encouraging penalties for a team mounting a standings rally, but at least it didn’t burn ’em this time.

Speaking of Halak, here’s another consecutive start for the undisputed number-one goalie in Washington. He was excellent, and there’s something perversely fun about watching robbing a team coached by Bruce Boudreau.

The Capitals got thrashed in puck possession during even strength– which was definitely a factor in committing all those penalties– but they made up for it with deadly efficiency on the power play. The Caps PP is still the best part of this team’s game, and they’re still pretty good at drawing penalties in the first place. They’d be even better if they were stronger at evens.

Brandon Wheat Kings reference on the broadcast? Chris Gordon doing the sup nod on the broadcast? Good broadcast.

Jonas Hiller was fantastic in the second period, stopping a whole bunch of strong Caps chances– including an amazing one by Jason Chimera in the final minutes of that frame.

Alex Ovechkin scored his 46th with the game-winner, a quintessential Ovi shot from the Ovi spot. That wasn’t enough for him– he peppered Hiller with shots during a late-game powerplay, hungry for moar. Looks like his little lull in shots last week is over, which is very good news. You wanna hear Walton call Ovi’s goal? Me too.

Adam Oates really stuck to his lines. Ovechkin played every second of his 5v5 time with Jay Bodenheimer Beagle (4 PIMs) through late in the game. The Mojo-Beagle-Ovi line wasn’t really bad at all, keeping possession about even despite the Ducks playing from behind all night.

What didn’t work: the Penner-Wellman-Wilson line. There’s no there there. I’ve got no clue what Penner’s role is supposed to be on this team. Well, I know what George McPhee wants his role to be. I just don’t know what Oates is intending with him — or that fourth line in general.

I do know this: if Oates puts Penner-Wellman-Wilson up against the Los Angeles Kings, they’ll get shredded. Take it the the bank. The blood bank, Senator Trent.

But I’m gonna default to playoff mode. I don’t care how they win. I merely care that they’ve won.

The Caps now leave Vanaheim and climb Yggdrasil to the realm of Angels.

The Anaheim Ducks have the best record in the NHL. Their coach, Bruce Boudreau, seems to have fallen up when he was fired by the Washington Capitals in 2011. The team has won nine in row, led by offensive stars Ryan Getzlaf, number three in league in points, and Corey Perry, number three in the league in goals. They have a good chance to win their second Stanley Cup since 2007. Monday night, they extended their winning streak with a comeback victory in Boudreau’s, Bob Woods’s, and Mathieu Perreault’s return to Verizon Center.

“Nine in a row: that’s pretty cool,” Boudreau told reporters after the game. “They were trying hard for the guys that were in Washington.”

For Boudreau, it was a surreal experience, plucked from the AHL’s Hershey Bears to lead the Capitals in 2007. More than anyone save for Alex Ovechkin, Boudreau is responsible for putting hockey back on the map in Washington. Without him, the Capitals wouldn’t have had their 202nd consecutive sellout Monday night. Without him, the team wouldn’t become the talk of the NHL. Without him, there may not have been any banners.

“Four and a half years — the greatest years of my life,” Boudreau said. “They didn’t put me on the board! Oh well.”

“I was a little surprised,” he concluded. “What can you do?”

Boudreau still has a soft spot for the Capitals. He watches their games and follows his old players. In his new gig, however, he may get the championship he always fell short of in Washington. The playoffs are a different type of hockey, but Boudreau’s new team plays a more all-around game then his squads in Washington. The Ducks are third in the league in goals per game, but — surprisingly for anyone who watched Bruce’s Caps teams — they also play defense.

I feel sorry for all the johnny-come-lately fans who never knew Bruce Boudreau’s Caps. You know who I’m talking about: all those fake fans who started following the Caps just because of the undeniable electricity of Hunter hockey. Those trendy, fairweather fans who only bought their first Caps shirsey because they saw Ovi pile on an inconceivable 38 goals back in 2011-2012. All they ever knew of the Caps was the unlimited delight of low puck possession and the benching of fan-hated Mike Knuble.

Okay, starting over.

If you were to make a list of things that turned this franchise around in the last decade, you’d see Bruce Boudreau’s name somewhere right underneath Alex Ovechkin and the return to the red uniforms. Now Boudreau is with the Ducks and positively killing it in the Western Conference. Boose brought his league-leading team to Verizon Center for his first game since getting fired more than two years ago. The crowd and the team seemed to appreciate the emotional dimension, and we fans got a decent, if uneven, game out of it.

Mikhail Grabovski got the Caps on the board first by tapping in a pass from Troy Brouwer (and helped along by Ben Lovejoy). Nicky Backstrom converted a power play four minutes later with a sneaky shot to Jonas Hiller’s shoulder. Andrew Cogliano got the Ducks into the game by sweeping up the shards of a broken Caps defense.

The second period was polluted by penalties, and Saiku Koivu tied it with a bang-bang in the waning seconds. Hampus Lindholm got a puck through a crowded shooting lane and well-screened Philipp Grubauer to put the Ducks up with five minutes left. Alex Ovechkin rang the post, and our hearts sank.

Ducks beat Caps 3-2.

Please visit our Kickstarter page to raise funds for Mikhail Grabovski‘s contract extension. In the first period he had a lovely tap-in goal from Fehr and Brouwer, plus he drew the penalty that led to Nicky Backstom’s goal. He’s the best. Surprisingly, his line did not do so great when measuring the tilt of the ice.

Marcus Johansson didn’t score, but he did go for a stuff shot that I would’ve called uncharacteristic a few months ago. Between that and his unholy penalties-committed/penalties-drawn ratio, he’s my pick for Most Improved Capitals player. (I’d still put Fehr on the top line, but that’s just cause I’m a hopeless homer and Fehr fanboy.)

Lots of bad defense by the top line and the Orlov/Green defensive pair on the Koivu goal. Orlov lost his man, Green marked up no one in particular, and Ovechkin might as well have got a cool pic of the goal for Instagram if he’s gonna skate so hard just to get a nice look at it.

The Capitals hung with the Ducks in the first period, but that chippy second period didn’t play to their advantage. That tying goal by Saku Koivu (still in my top-10 list of Most Star Wars Extended Universe hockey player names) was kind of an inevitability looking at the shot attempt chart, which I’ll share in comments as usual. The Ducks took control of this one after the first intermission and never let go.

Oates did switch it up in the third, putting Laich between Chimera and Ward just in time for the go-ahead goal for the Ducks. So much for line matching.

In what I interpret as a sort of randomized controlled trial for playing the hot hand, Adam Oates gave Philipp Grubauer another start despite two healthy and proven goaltenders looking bored and playing Candy Crush somewhere in the building. Unwise.

Joe B suit of the night

Bruce Boudreau’s Ducks have won nine games in a row.

I really liked the Capitals team we saw in the first period. Great forecheck and work in neutral, threatening the net at even strength and drawing penalties, sloughing off the ceremonial man-on-man coverage Ovi gets during the power play.

I guess all those penalties in the second interrupted the momentum, as we didn’t see any of that good stuff in the latter forty. The Caps didn’t put many pucks on net– either overall or in proportion to the Ducks. That’s a serious problem that requires remedy, though I guess we did see some respectable back-and-forth action between the blue lines. But with Bruce Boudreau in the house, I had really hoped for something on the order of 80 shots overall.

I guess I’ll have to live with the disappointment. I can do that. I’ve been getting good at that ever since Boudreau’s dismissal back in the late 80s.

Two years ago, after the Washington’s eighth loss in 11 games, the Capitals fired head coach Bruce Boudreau. Gabby had glided the team to a Presidents’ Trophy and made the Caps the talk of the NHL. He had also overseen crushing playoff defeats and long losing streaks. After the latest one, general manager George McPhee had enough.

In 2013, Boudreau is on a different streak. He now coaches the Anaheim Ducks, a team he took over just two days after being fired by the Caps. Tonight, Bruce returns to Verizon Center for the first time (along with Mathieu Perreault), with his team on an eight-game winning streak. They own the best record in the NHL.

I’m trying to be as business-like as possible. But there are a lot of great memories in this building.

On the relationships he had with the players in Washington

I thought they were really good relationships. They were great guys. For a lot of them, just watching tapes of them, thinking we’ve played in Hershey together, we’ve won championships together. When you win a championship, no matter where you are, you always have a special bond with that group. That’ll be with me forever. At the end of the season, I’ll see a couple of them, but right now I won’t even look over at them tonight. Not once. I’ll be too afraid [laughs].

On if he still follows the Capitals

It’s the time difference. We get to watch the seven o’clock games. Sometimes they’re on and it happens to be there. I’ll watch them.

On wanting his former players to succeed

If you like somebody, you want them to do good. But I don’t want them to do good tonight. But you want them to succeed and you want good things to happen to good people. It’s just natural.

On the difference between Anaheim and Washington, D.C.

The environment is a little different. In California, it’s a little more laid back. We get two media people in our morning scrum, and I think half of them are right here. It’s a little different this morning.

On if he’ll look around the arena and soak it all in during tonight’s game

I don’t know what I’m going to be looking at tonight. I’m going to be trying to focus solely on the game, but I know cameras are going to be on everywhere I look. And that’s what they’re going to show, like ‘Oh, there he is looking at Billy Joe in the stands.’ So I’ll be pretty focused on the game.

On if he knows what kind of reaction he’ll get from the fans

I don’t want to anticipate anything, quite frankly. It’s going to be nerve-wracking going on the bench. It’s going to be really exciting seeing all the red. When the jerseys weren’t there, then all of a sudden you have 18,000 people wearing red. I thought that was cool. That’ll be interesting for me.

On his thoughts on Alex Ovechkin taking his game to another level this season

I guess we might have to cover him tonight. He’s a pretty good player. He got 65 goals the one year, and he won two Hart Trophies when I was here. We all knew how great he was. He can turn it on at any moment. At the same time, every player I’ve seen in any sport has gone through a year where they’ve had a little slump. He certainly has picked it back up. He’s the catalyst on this team, and certainly a top candidate for MVP again.

On the Washington Capitals

They can score. They come from behind and they never quit. They have a power play that you don’t want to take any penalties against. They’re very good.

On the season former Capitals forward Mathieu Perreault is having

He’ll be pretty excited to play tonight. If the people in Washington remember, when he was on, he was buzzing around on the forecheck. He will be genuinely excited to play here. He used to be a big crowd favorite, too, so I’m sure he’ll get some butterflies and his adrenaline will be going.

He’s the same type of player as always, but maybe a little more mature, a little older, and a little more experienced. He still goes through his bugs of inconsistency, but right now, during the last few games, he’s been very good. We hope that continues. He was hurting for two weeks and his game sagged, because skating is Matty’s game. If he can’t skate, then it really takes a lot away from him. But the last two games, he’s been skating and has been the catalyst in our comebacks and in our wins.

On returning to Washington D.C. with a franchise-best eight-game winning streak

I didn’t plan that [laughs]. We’re pretty fortunate that that’s happened. We’re happy about it, but those guys have earned it because they’ve worked really hard to get there through the injuries we’ve had. Now we’re second in man-games lost, but for most of the year we had the most injuries. They kept battling. And we’ve played the most road games in the league. They’ve got a good character group in there that wants to win every night.

On the first thing that came to mind when he first stepped into Verizon Center yesterday

I hope the ice is better [laughs]. I just saw [Verizon Center] and said, “Wow, it’s different from this [visiting] locker room.” I didn’t even know how to get into the building from a visitor’s standpoint. It’s all interesting.

On what he’ll miss most from his time here

The people. The people were great, and the whole city was great, as far as the fans go and the way my family and I were treated. And, I’ll miss the players. I thought they were a rabid bunch that wanted to win. I wouldn’t mind playing them in the Stanley Cup Final. I think that would be a fun environment.

On if there is any lingering bitterness from being let go in Washington

I don’t know if bitterness is the right word. I’ve never used that word, I don’t think. I was grateful for them and what they gave me. No one would’ve ever hired me after 30 years in the minors, unless it was [General Manager] George McPhee and [Chairman and Majority Owner] Ted Leonsis. They took a chance on me. So even though you got let go, I was grateful for the opportunity because I got a job basically a day later.

On the memories of being in Hershey and Washington, D.C.

Great memories I’ll never forget. The championships in Hershey, the raising of the banners here, the comeback wins. All of those things. Watching Alex [Ovechkin] go versus Sidney [Crosby] and all the hype it would bring. The Winter Classic. Everything about Washington was a really great experience.

The Washington Capitals are carrying three goaltenders right now. Why? Not sure. But with Philipp Grubauer earning another start tonight, Braden Holtby decided to take a shift or two on defense during this morning’s practice.

I’m in love with this photo right now. I’d take Holtby over Urbom any day of the week.